Custom Jawline Implant

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am interested in a custom jawline implant. I am attaching a few photos of my face and you will see that my lower third is narrow. My general interest is in a wraparound jaw implant in order to widen the face, tighten up the submental, improve aesthetics of the face and protrude the chin to balance the protrusion of the nose. What does your aesthetic eye think of this possibility judging by my photos?

Do the custom made implants have a high success rate as in the forum for plastic surgery knowledge I frequent there is a patient from Western Europe of yours that has had 2 revisions to his jaw implants in the span of 7 months? He says its “finetuning to look natural”. I am not extremely interested in having it revised because I dont want to endure the whole ordeal again.

A: If you are looking for increased lower facial width and dimensions of the chin and jaw angles that has a smooth linear connection than a custom jawline would be the preferred choice.

It is not uncommon for many patients to have revisions of custom facial implants including custom jawline implants. This is primarily because they often don’t know what they really want until they wear it to so speak. In the case you so described the patient himself chose the dimensions and that was what was exactly provided to him…only later to decide he wanted a different look. (Less strong)

The key in any custom jawline implant is that less is more. It is always to better to go smaller in dimensions as its effect is more substantial than a patient can anticipate. In looking at your face that its exactly what you…a smaller custom jawline implant. I cll this type a ‘jawline defining implant’ as it just adds angularity and a little width.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana